Free Run For the Money by Eric Beetner

confused.
    Slick turned and left the two cramped into the confessional. Near the front door was a donation box of hand carved mahogany. Slick lifted the box off the base stand and threw it to the floor. It broke open, but there was no shower of coins. He tore the splintered wood and found three single dollar bills and a quarter. He shook his head, pocketed the bills and called back to the couple he left behind.
    “You guys gotta work on your fundraising. I could teach you a thing or two about getting money when you need it. How does six hundred grand sound?”
    He laughed his way out the door.

CHAPTER 13
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    E very day should start off with a good fuck , thought Emma as she stepped out into a brighter world. The rain had stopped and she still tingled between her legs. A little bit from the heavy pounding and a little bit from the anticipation of more.
    The money made the rest of her body tingle.
    Time to go get $642,000 and get the fuck out of town.
    On the way out, though, be sure to stop off and get one more ride on detective MacKaye. That guy was the real deal. Her whole view of guys had changed. No more bikers, no more scars, no more beer guts. She deserved a guy who took care of himself. With all that money she could stop associating with criminals and meet a respectable guy. Maybe not a cop, but still . . .
    “Why Emma, I dare say you’re glowing.” It was MacKaye.
    Emma stopped on the sidewalk. The day seemed suddenly darker; the grey clouds of yesterday hanging around, wearing out their welcome.
    “What are you doing here?” For a brief moment she thought he may have come back for seconds, which she would willingly oblige.
    “Just keeping an eye on you. Where you headed?”
    Emma had been pissed off before when a guy fucked her and then never came around again, but that was nothing compared to this guy who fucked her and wouldn’t leave her alone.
    “You said you weren’t going to follow me anymore.”
    “Did I?”
    “Yes. You did.” She gave him her best woman-scorned stare.
    “Did we shake on it?” A smile sat on his face, asking to be slapped off.
    “We fucked on it.” Then, sarcastically, “Remember?”
    “Oh yeah. That was good.”
    “You cocksucker.”
    “We didn’t even get that far. But as long as you’re offering . . .”
    Emma held up an open palm to shut him up. “What about Bo? There were two men you arrested, remember? Why can’t you go after him? You know they’re not traveling together.”
    “Oh, we will. We thought for a moment he was dead at the scene, but it turned out to be some teenager joyriding in his daddy’s car that his girlfriend wrapped around a tree. We figure one of the two of them was somehow involved. But I follow leads, not figuring, and I saw the court transcripts and the arrest records and Bo doesn’t have a girlfriend like Slick does. And I figured I had a better chance at catching me a fugitive if I hung around here.”
    “Like a fly on shit.”
    “You do have some colorful pillow talk, Emma.”
    Emma started fast-walking back to her apartment. If she thought he was serious she would have dropped to her knees and blown him right in the street, but she didn’t want him to know that.
    MacKaye called after her, “I said I’d see you around.”
    The money, like another go with MacKaye, would have to wait.

CHAPTER 14
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    P assing through the old neighborhood was a walking tour of Bo’s failures.
    He saw the playground where he first tried meth, walked by the house of his best friend Tommy, now serving fifteen-to-thirty at Wharton, walked by the telephone pole where he wrecked Dad’s car.
    It was shortly after the car – a one-month old Cadillac, Dad’s dream car – Sawyer Marcus decided to do something about his son’s drug problem.
    “Sixteen years old is too early to ruin your life,” he told his son. “If you can’t stop it, I’ll stop it for you.”
    Bo never knew how, but his dad tracked down